There are numerous federal statutes, executive orders, regulations, and several Treasury, GSA and IRS directives, and agency practices pertaining to the assignment, use, and expense of parking in both government owned and leased facilities. This IRM provides guidance to ensure that the IRS complies with applicable federal parking mandates in the assignment, allocation, and management of parking at all government owned and leased IRS facilities. This IRM also provides guidance on managing taxable parking benefits.

The IRS Parking Program is based on the following statutes, executive orders, regulations, and agency directives:

Each FMSS Territory Manager (TM) is responsible for:

Every December, the parking program owner in Real Property submits a control for Form 9606, Taxable Parking Benefits. This control distributes Form 9606 and IRS Pub 15-B, Employer’s Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, to FMSS TMs. The TMs must then distribute the forms to recipients of parking with a value exceeding the yearly taxable fringe benefit and to the Beckley Finance Center.

Program documentation and information is centralized and stored on a SharePoint site with access limited to authorized personnel.

The yearly control for Taxable Parking Benefits is distributed for completion via the FMSS Controls SharePoint Site.

For purposes of parking the following definitions found in 41 CFR 102-71.20 apply.

For the purposes of this program, the following IRS definition applies:

Table of acronyms and their definitions.

IRM 1.14.6, Real Property

The IRS may procure parking for IRS customers when it is determined that adequate modes of public transportation are not available to the site, or an adequate combination of public transportation and commercial parking facilities is not available.

In most instances, appropriated funds will not be used to procure employee parking. The Office of the Comptroller General has long found that employee parking is generally considered a personal expense of the employee and expenses considered personal in nature are not payable from appropriated funds absent specific statutory authority (43 Comp. Gen.131, 1963, Comp. Gen. Op. B-152020). Since it is the Government's stated position to encourage the use of public transportation, the IRS should not take actions to acquire space that will encourage employees to drive to work rather than use public transportation.

In certain situations, parking may be procured when the IRS determines, for legitimate reasons, that to provide parking for employees, is mission essential. The "mission essential" determination may require a justification from the IRS to GSA stating employee parking is necessary to avoid a significant impairment to agency operating efficiency. The use of public transportation must not be discouraged, and limited availability of parking and inconvenience are not factors which by themselves can justify a determination that parking is mission essential.

After a requesting business operating division determines parking is mission essential, the FMSS TM will contact local government officials to determine whether improvements can be made in public transportation (i.e., additional buses or route changes), if additional public parking can be made available, or if any reasonable solution can be found beyond acquiring additional parking spaces.

The criteria to evaluate whether parking is mission essential are:

Parking must not automatically be procured on a one-to-one ratio for all employees, even when some parking is considered mission essential. For new or leased construction, GSA will conduct a parking survey with the local FMSS territory office to determine the specific number of parking spaces to be provided for official, visitor and employee vehicles. The survey should consider need based on the adequacy of public transportation, the availability of commercial or public parking facilities, employee shifts and other concerns such as environmental quality and energy consumption.

Facilities most likely to meet the mission essential criteria are the campuses and computing centers. However, for each new procurement and assignment of space, regardless of location, parking requirements will be reassessed due to changes in the building’s IRS occupants, hours of duty, available transportation, federal laws, executive orders, regulations or directives, and proper assignment in accord with 41 CFR 102-74.285 and 41 CFR 102-74.305.

The eligibility for government provided parking for reasons of a disability will be determined on the same basis as other requests for RA, which are to: give the person an equal opportunity to be considered for a job; to perform the essential functions of the job; and to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of the job.

In accordance with 41 CFR 102-71.20, a disabled employee is one who has "a severe, permanent impairment that for all practical purposes precludes the use of public transportation, or an employee who is unable to operate a car as a result of permanent impairment who is driven to work by another."

In instances where parking spaces are available for the IRS due to a lease procurement, code, or government owned building allotment after parking for official vehicles is met in accordance with 41 CFR 102-74.285, FMSS will assign approved RA parking for employees in accordance with 41 CFR 102-74.305. Where IRS assigned parking is unavailable, the IRS will acquire and fund RA parking through the lease or through assignment from GSA, if possible.

If RA parking is not possible through the GSA lease or assignment, and parking is not available for employees to acquire individually, the acquisition of parking for disabled personnel may be considered necessary as a RA in accordance with IRM 1.14.9.2.4 (1).

Prior to acquiring parking for disabled employees, alternatives to consider include:

If parking is available for employees to acquire on their own, the IRS will not acquire or fund the parking except for when the employee is required to pay substantially higher commercial parking costs than those paid by non-disabled employees who are able to use less expensive facilities at a greater distance. Per this exception, the employee can be reimbursed for the difference between the less expensive and the more expensive parking (63 Comp. Gen. 270, 1984, B-211812). The business operating division funds the difference.

The government may also pay if the employee would be excluded from accessing the site if the government did not provide parking. This situation occurs when the location or accessibility of public transportation or commercial parking facilities place unreasonable physical demands or impose undue safety risks on employees with disabilities. When there is doubt about availability, the government must pay for the spaces so that an RA is provided.

When a disabled employee must use a personal vehicle in performance of his or her duties and there is no way to ensure availability of continuous accessible parking without the government procuring the space, parking may be paid by the government. For example, urban locations may have limited accessible parking spaces that might not be available to employees if the government did not procure them with the lease.

Drivers who regularly provide disabled employees with rides to work must be given disabled parking preference, if available.

Employees with temporary disabilities may be allocated temporary use of existing parking for the disabled, if available. However, use of the parking space should be limited to the projected period of the temporary disability that impairs a major life function. The FMSS TM must ensure that adequate controls are in place to monitor temporary parking. In the event of limited spaces, employees with temporary disabilities who have been allocated an available space may be requested to give up the space if needed for an RA parking request.

Criteria and procedure for IRS-funded parking for an RA when parking is assigned to the IRS or when the IRS acquires parking:

Generally, the need to acquire parking for employees who use their POV for official business is determined in the same manner as the need to provide parking for other employees. For additional information, see IRM 1.14.9.4.2 (1) (d).

The Government generally does not provide free parking spaces for contractors. However, when excess free parking is available, contractors may be allowed to park free with the acknowledgment that IRS requirements have priority. There may also be instances when service contractors, performing building or machine maintenance, may be provided with temporary free parking while performing IRS contract work if parking spaces are already available. This stipulation should be included in the service contract. Decisions regarding contractor parking should be based on the most cost-effective method consistent with market conditions, security concerns for the specific site and contract provisions.

After all official parking has been assigned according to the priority established in 41 CFR 102–74.285, the federal agency building manager (usually GSA) must allocate remaining spaces among occupant agencies on an equitable basis, such as by allocating the parking in proportion to each agency's share of building space, office space or total employee population. In certain cases, federal agencies may allow a third party, such as a board composed of representatives of agencies sharing space, to determine proper parking allocations among the occupant agencies. Any remaining spaces after IRS official use needs are met in government-owned facilities will be filled by order of priority established in 41 CFR 102-74.305.

If the IRS has a need for additional parking for official business during an occupancy, that requirement should be met by a reduction in non-mission essential parking in accordance with the order of priority established in 41 CFR 102-74.305. If this affects bargaining unit employees, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) must be notified in advance.

The IRS is not precluded from accepting parking privileges for its employees when local ordinances require that the owner provide off-street parking for occupants of the building and the owner is prevented from charging separately for such parking privileges.

The IRS is not prohibited from including provisions in a GSA or IRS delegated lease requesting that the offeror identify the amount and cost of parking that can be made available to employees to acquire on their own.

It is preferred, but not required, that the IRS asks GSA to negotiate all charges for parking, even if the cost is an employee expense, to gain savings through economies of scale and to ensure that charges are fair and reasonable.

Since government vehicles assigned to Criminal Investigation (CI) are used in the apprehension of criminals, these vehicles are assigned a higher priority for parking in 41 CFR 102–74.285 and usually represent the highest priority for IRS and GSA assigned parking space in government owned and leased buildings.

CI has an obligation to bring prisoners, informants, firearms, and equipment in and out of a building and away from the public as inconspicuously as possible. Where physically practicable, at least one parking space assigned to CI must be located adjacent to or near a building's freight elevator, loading dock or service entrance. When acquiring a new lease, the FMSS TM must ensure that the GSA RLP includes this provision in the special requirements. In facilities that also have reserved parking for official vehicles from other federal agencies, CI and the FMSS TM must work with GSA and the other agencies to meet this requirement.

Each parking space reserved for a CI government vehicle must be identified with a sign stating, "Reserved for Federal Government Vehicles."

If GSA has no available parking spaces or is otherwise unwilling to procure parking, especially in instances of need for one or two spaces, the IRS is permitted to use its own procurement authority to obtain parking. The cost of such procurements is paid from the requesting organization’s service and supply budget, not from rent. The IRS may not use this authority without a determination of mission need in accordance with IRM 1.14.9.2.3, or in the event space is needed for government vehicles, such as for CI. The procedures for requesting parking through a purchase order, service contract or similar document will be determined locally. The FMSS TM will work with the requesting business operating division to determine which organization can acquire the necessary spaces in the most expeditious manner in conjunction with IRS Procurement.

Whenever parking is limited and is allocated as prescribed in IRM 1.14.9.2 and where available parking remains, approval for the following situations must be obtained:

Rent for parking assigned to the IRS from GSA, either in a government owned or leased building, will be coded to the requesting organization if GSA bills it through the rent. However, if IRS acquires parking through a purchase order, service contract or similar document, the requesting organization must fund the parking from their services and supplies budget.

If conditions change, or an election is made to save costs, the IRS may request a reduction or elimination of parking. If this affects parking for bargaining unit employees, advance notification of such changes must be made to NTEU through the servicing labor relations office.

For those locations where parking is valued in excess of the applicable annual threshold per month, the FMSS TM must have the recipient complete Form 9606, Taxable Parking Benefits.

The FMSS TM will mail or fax the completed Form 9606 to the Beckley Finance Center, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), by the end of the calendar year in which the taxable fringe benefit was received.